"Last one t'th' door's a Turk in a turban!" Sir Hugo shouted, spurring his mount, and they were off, snow, slush, and turf spraying from their horses' hooves, and all, Charlotte included, hallooing and whooping with happiness-'til she came in last, of course, was dubbed that Turk in a turban, and got all sulky again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Respectability had altered the celebration of Christmas, even in Alan Lewrie's times. Gangs of drunken revellers invading a house, led by the Lord of Mis-Rule and bought off with food and drink, were not much seen any longer, even in tumultuous, unruly London. The old custom of church "ales" in which every communicant in the parish, wealthy or poor, honest or otherwise, drank and supped together were things of the past in all but the most rural places, mostly reduced to a supper hosted by landowners for their own cottagers and labourers, more of a post-harvest celebration than a religious one.
So the Lewries, the Trenchers, the Chiswicks, and several other families, direct kin or long-time neighbours, spent Christmas Eve at Uncle Phineas's, with gay dancing right out and carols and hymns round the harpsichord replacing merriment. Mostly due to the fact that Phineas Chiswick would not pay for musicians, and held that too much gaiety anent the Birth of the Saviour was irreligious and unseemly. There was not enough wine to enliven things, anyway, or wash down their mediocre supper.
They coached home round ten in the evening, gathered about their own harpsichord, and sang and played livelier airs on their own, with Lewrie on his penny-whistle, Charlotte scraping away on her small violin, Sewallis strumming a guitar, and Hugh making odd notes on his recorder. There was hot chocolate, with scones and jam to make up for the supper, and… from the kitchens the competing sounds of Liam Desmond and his uilleann lap-pipes, the thudding of Patrick Furfy on a shallow bodhran drum, and someone on the fife.
"Sounds like they're havin' a good time," Lewrie said as their last passable effort at a carol came to a merciful end. "Let's have my lads in for tune or two, and a glass of something."
Mrs. Calder, who had been rocking and knitting in silent disapproval in the corner, gave a faint snort and looked to her mistress to scotch such nonsense.
"They're servants, my dear," Caroline pointed out, making her "my dear" sound strained and forced, said only for the children's sake.
"Who'll attend church with us tomorrow morning," Lewrie countered, "whom we'll gift the day after on Boxing Day, and… Desmond and Furfy are sailors, dearest… my sailors. Mistress Calder, I would admire did ye fetch a bottle of brandy and sufficient glasses, as you summon them to the parlour."
"Very well, sir," Mrs. Calder replied with a stiff nod, putting away her knitting as if she'd been commanded to set out drink for the Devil himself.
His wife and her chief housekeeper might not have approved, but Lewrie and the children enjoyed the improvement. Sewallis and Hugh learned a "pulley-hauley" chanty or two, and got instruction on how to do a hornpipe dance, then a bit of clogging Irish step-dance, at which the burly Furfy was surprisingly light-footed. The cook and her husband, the scullery girl, Charlotte and Caroline's maids, and the maids-of-all-work (who'd been nipping at a bottle of their own on the sly) got into the spirit of things too and wanted to dance, which required Lewrie and Caroline to play some lively airs to accommodate them. It was nigh eleven before Lewrie uncorked the brandy bottle and began to pour all round.
"Tomorrow, we'll be prim, proper, and serious," Lewrie told them, "and surely inspired by the vicar's homily, but tonight… on the eve of our Saviour's birth, let us count our blessings. All charged? May I and my wife wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Now… 'heel-taps' and then to our rest!" They all lifted their glasses and drank them down to the very last drops, glasses inverted at the last to show that "heel-taps" had been attained. "Good night, all, and thankee for the merriment."
The children were hugged, hands were shaken, Charlotte kissed and wished sweet dreams, then all were herded upstairs by the sour Mrs. Calder-sure to hiss and take all joy from the previous hours before they were all tucked in for the night.
"Not sure I like that woman," Lewrie grumbled as he poured himself another glass of brandy. "Stiff as that'un we had years ago… Missuz McGowan, wasn't it?"
"You disapprove of my choice of housekeeper, or governness, do you?" Caroline snapped. "It is my house, after all… my housewifery, year in and year out, but for the few brief spells you allow us from the Navy. I am quite satisfied with Mistress Calder's management of both house and children… else the boys would be as wild as so many Red Indians… as wild as you, sir!"
Merry bloody Christmas t'you, too! Lewrie thought with a groan, his nose in his glass; this ain't workin'. Never will, most-like. I might as well lodge in London at the Madeira Club 'til Hellfreezes up.
"The boys are only home 'tween school terms, these days," Lewrie pointed out. "And Charlotte ain't the wild sort, Caroline. She's more in need of tutorin' at dancin' and music than grim discipline."
The glare he got could have shattered boulders.
"But I will defer t'your wishes, your ways," he quickly added.
"For as long as you stay," Caroline grimly said. "Which is?"
"'Til the French start the war again, I am home," Lewrie told her. "It's my home, too. And 'til the boys leave for Hilary term, I hope we can share it… in a sham of harmony, at any rate. After that, well… you're the 'Post-Captain' o' this barge, and I'll try to accommodate my ways to yours. Stay out from under foot… all that," he allowed in a soft voice that would not carry abovestairs, chin tucked in defensively. "I don't s'pose Zachariah Twigg's visit made any impression at all?"
"What a horrid man!" Caroline exclaimed, her own arms folded over her chest. "Like an oily… spider!"
"And a hellish-dangerous one, t'boot," Lewrie agreed. "And God help any foe or spy that crosses his hawse. Every time he hauls me in on one of his schemes, it's neck-or-nothing, and cut-throats and murderers on ev'ry hand. Fair gives me the 'colly-wobbles,' he does."
Zachariah Twigg, until his partial retirement from His Majesty's Government, had served the Crown in the Secret Branch of the Foreign Office for years, and had been Lewrie's bug-a-bear since 1784, off and on. Oh, he'd sworn he'd coach down to Anglesgreen to explain who had Written the poisonously anonymous letters to Caroline-Theoni Kavares Connor-and the why, which had been spite that she could not have Lewrie for her own; and how so many of the sexual dalliances she had accused Lewrie of-in such lurid detail-had been complete fictions,… or so richly embellished.
Twigg's promised expiation could not erase all of Lewrie's overseas doings, of course: his mistress in the Mediterranean when commanding the Jester Sloop of War, or the fact that Lewrie had indeed seeded Theoni Kavares Connor with a bastard son, but… the rest of it was a fantasy meant to harm.
"Have t'talk about us… sooner or later," Lewrie told her, shrugging as he took another sip of brandy. "After Epiphany or-"
"Yes, we do, Alan," Caroline softly agreed, looking down at the pattern of the parlour carpet. She looked up then, almost beseechingly, with the vertical furrow 'tween her brows prominent. "Do you love me, Alan? Even after all your… do you still love me?"
Caroline was not the sprightly young miss he'd first met during the evacuation of Wilmington, North Carolina, back in his days as a Midshipman in the American Revolution. Nor was she the lissome bride he'd taken vows with at St. George's. Yet…